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Danielle Park and I caught up for our bi-weekly chat. Did you know that France is the most depressed country on earth? The United States is right on their heels, so don’t despair. But Danielle and I agree that you can turn things around any time you so desire. Live beneath your means, avoid leverage and don’t engage in economic self-destruction. Just because you succeeded in your business doesn’t make you an expert in every business. You always need to be re-evaluating, which is often a humbling experience. Stay optimistic because all economic depressions eventually end, even this one.

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The ObamaCare “epic fail” beat goes on an on, and there does not appear to be anyone who wants to stop it. The result is going to be unabated chaos in the healthcare market. The application process and health insurance exchanges are not going to work properly. People will be unable to get the coverage that they have been promised, and doctors and hospitals will be unable to get paid all while the politicians start pointing fingers at each other. The end result is per-ordained: a complete and unmitigated failure… something the government is uniquely situated to provide.

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Michael Croix is an expert on personal debt. When it comes to getting your creditors to write off your debt, time truly is money. If you can afford to sit back and wait for your creditors to start making settlement offers, then time is on your side. If you need to clean-up your credit to buy a car, a home or to get new credit cards, then time is on your creditors’ side. Eventually all consumer debts go off your credit report and become unenforceable. It’s just a matter of whether you can wait that long or not.

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John Jamieson is on a nationwide mission to break families and businesses out of financial bondage and allow you to comfortably retire. He started his Perpetual Financing Systems to help educate people on how they can create their own financing system that will grow wealth automatically and systematically. For example, John shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s better to pay cash for your car than to finance it, in effect borrowing to fund your 401k. He believes that sticking with the current system will impoverish most of the country and prevent you from retiring. That’s why a different mindset is required to insure that you don’t outlive your money.

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Andy Hoffman is back for another Monday installment. There’s a movement a foot. While gold and silver shortages continue to crop up, May 1st is officially The National Campaign To Buy Silver Day. It is hoped that with massive physical purchases of silver, the paper silver will become irrelevant, once and for all. If this helps raise the price of silver, then so be it. The end of the massive manipulation of precious metals prices will soon become a thing of the past. There will only be two kinds of people in the world, those that have precious metals and those that don’t, which group do you want to belong to?

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Lyudmila Bloch is an international etiquette expert, protocol consultant, seminar leader, etiquette author (The Golden Rules of Etiquette at The Plaza, World-Class Business Etiquette), and multilingual business-etiquette coach in New York City since 2000. Etiquette is extremely important when it comes to interacting in a positive manner with society and others. It also helps you to be a good role model for your children. Sitting at the table with your family while texting away isn’t being a positive role model. Good manners and good etiquette are extremely important. It makes people feel better about each other, and themselves. When it comes to your children, good etiquette starts with you.

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Last week was a busy one, but one interview that stood out was my talk with Ellen Shaffer. She is associated with a San Francisco Bay Area think tank. Of course, when you hear those words, you know that collectivist thought is never too far behind. She is outraged by potential cuts to Social Security, and she does not believe that Social Security contributes to the deficit. She will not admit that deficits are potentially fatal to an economy, as well as to a society. Her comrade in arms, Paul B. Farrell, goes even further to claim that it is actually the free market causing our moral decline. Somehow, he believes that crony-capitalism is a function of free markets. Perhaps he needs to crack open his Econ-101 text book, and find out what capitalism actually is.

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On Wall Street, appearances are all that matters. Matt Taibbi recently proclaimed that Everything Is Rigged. Welcome to the club, Matt. We’ve been saying this for years, and very few people took us seriously. We hope that you’re wearing your tin foil hat, because you’ll be similarly ostracized, if you haven’t been already. How many other journalists can get away with calling Goldman Sachs a giant vampire squid? Bill Holter just got back from Europe, and he sees precious metals demand raging around the planet. Pre-1965 90% silver coins are virtually unobtainable, and premiums on other popular products have doubled or tripled overnight. Eventually, the COMEX will fail, and you can take that to the bank.

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We connected with Ellen Shaffer of the Center for Policy Analysis. She’s quite knowledgeable about budgetary matters and believes that we cannot afford to balance the budget on the backs of our seniors. The effort to implement the chained CPI adjustment for veterans and seniors will cost them dearly by understating the true rate of inflation. She believes that it’s far better to tax the rich and large corporations at higher rate than under current law. In addition, she believes that Social Security is solvent and everyone will receive their benefits.

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Diana Zoppa and I caught up today. The best money savings tip for the week is buy gold and silver at prices below fair market. After last week’s slam-down, gold and silver have been on sale and people have lined up around the block to purchase the physical stuff. Diana also is reading an incredible book, The Golden Mean, by Nelson Hultberg. It explains exactly what’s going in society today and why the progressives are winning. We also talked about discount phone plans. If you can’t qualify for an Obamaphone, think about Metro PCS.

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I responded to an email by Brian Bloom of BeyondNeanderthal.com and a frequent critic of your host. He seems to think that just because gold has historically held its value and that people have perceived it as having value, that it really has little intrinsic value. He suggests that I drink several glasses of scotch to help come to my senses. You be the judge. Next we talk about the latest congressional conspiracy to exempt itself from major portions of Obamacare. Will this outrage be allowed by we the people?

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We talked with Jason Hartman today. We wanted some clarification on his thoughts about precious metals versus the real estate market. Jason likes precious metals better than holding cash or paper assets and is a precious metals owner himself. A few of you wrote bemoaning evil tenants and rapacious management companies. Jason affirmed that these are valid considerations, however he felt that the potential benefits far outweigh the risks. It’s probably just like any other investment, if you do your homework and get a little lucky, it can be quite profitable.

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We talked with CPA Michael Gray about strategies for keeping more of your money and paying less in taxes to the IRS. Certainly things have gotten harder with the new tax law, but there are still strategies available for minimizing your tax burden Charitable contributions, retirement planning and other things still work, although obviously not as well as before. The important thing is to start planning now and not wait to get blindsided in December.

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Charles Nenner called it again. After the first gold slam down earlier in April, he said that there would be a better low later in the month, this week to be exact. His call was on the money. Longer term he’s a raging precious metals bull, but in the next couple of months he’s unsure whether we’ll see a “U” or “W” bottom. However for the longer term gold will resume it’s 12 year bull market and hit new highs in the process. His take on Apple is similar. He’s not sure about Apple’s bottom, but doesn’t see it going higher until it breaks $440. I follow Nenner’s market calls very closely and you should too.

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Dave Lavinsky has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to get funding for their startups. Many of them became successful businesses. The new thing is crowd source funding and Dave has developed a powerful system for doing it right. First, you need to establish your credibility and to provide value to your funding group. This will get the donations flowing. In addition, crowd source funding is the ultimate inexpensive way to find out whether your new business will have a market. It’s a way to test market your ideas before you spend big money on them. This will help you to avoid the expensive mistakes that so many new entrepreneurs make.

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Ted J. Leverette returned to Financial Survival Network. Buying a business with the goal of retirement sounds like a contradiction in terms. However, if you’ve got the ability to run a company, have the ability to make a down payment and the desire to make up your retirement income shortfall. Then find a profitable company that has a history of making a profit, even during 2008-09 recession. Finding these companies can be difficult, but Ted is an expert at finding Cherries, privately owned companies that aren’t currently on the market. This is the best way to fund a comfortable retirement.

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T. Scott Gross writes extensively about the Millennial Generaton. They have different values than Baby Boomers and different goals. Team work seems to come more naturally to them. They were born into the digital age. They don’t know from analog devices. They’re quick to adopt new technology. They want a direct flow of information back and forth to management. They have diminshed expectations and you can’t demand loyalty from them, you’ve got to earn it. These are just some of their issues.

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Dale Penn and his wife were identity theft victims. It was all new to them and they had no idea what to do. This led Dale on a journey and now he’s written a book about it, Identity Theft Secrets, which shows you how not to be a victim. There are things that you can do right now to prevent thieves from getting ahold of your idenity. First, lock down all of your computers. Encrypt your hard drives and protect your mobile devices. Next, make sure any important documents are shredded before they hit the garbage can and finally monitor your credit report. Even if you take all these steps, you still may be victimized, but you’ll be prepared and will act quickly to minimize the damage.

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Jeff’s book Life’s Cheat Sheets was written to inspire young adults (really all adults) to learn crucial, real-life street-smart skills, showing them how to control their mind, think big, and take daily action to achieve results beyond their dreams. It lays out crucial life skills that schools barely brush upon. It teaches young adults how to grab the bull by the horns and steer their life in the direction they want it to go. It gives techniques on mind control, then outlines key techniques to accelerate their success, and concludes with essential life planning. We also discussed the proper way to get a college education and saves 10’s of thousands, even 100’s in debt.

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Gold is down $200 in just a few days. You would expect that physical holders would be unloading the stuff creating a veritable selling panic. Not the case. In fact, the reality is quite the contrary. At the Perth Mint in Australian buyers were lined up around the block. While it’s harder to find a brick and mortar establishment selling precious metals in the US, most major retailers have been drained of 90 percent pre-1965 silver coins, one ounce rounds and silver eagles. Shortages are starting to crop up for 1 ounce gold coins as well. What’s going on here? Why is the market acting so irrationally? It appears that the paper market is rapidly decoupling from the physical market, a healthy trend that we believe will increase drastically in the future.

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Ranting Andy Hoffman was back for another Monday filled with insights and much information. The physical silver and gold markets are charging foward even while the paper markets seem lifeless and a bit dull. Premiums are escalating and the bullion dealers are having difficulties keeping any silver in inventory. The same effect is starting to be seen in the physical gold market as well. Things seem to be more and more out of control as the days go by. Andy believes that there’s very little time left to acquire the necessities of life, including precious metals. So now is probably an excellent time to stock up.

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You made it through another week, even after the mother of all precious metals raids. Gold finished up around $1408 and silver’s a little over $23. What is going on in the world? Every bit of the real news that you’ve been getting — from Cyprus to China to Europe to the US — should be bullish for gold and silver. Record money printing, loss of faith in banks, declining economic performance the world over; how can this be? Listen on and find out more.

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Tom Dyson of The Palm Beach Letter joined us for an analysis of Bitcoin and the emerging electronic currencies. It’s time to cut the middle man banksters out of our transactions. It will result in greater privacy and less costly goods and services. The Internet is emerging into a payment mechanism. Tom thinks that Gold could be sending out a message about potential deflation in the world’s financial system. No doubt we’ll find out soon. Finally, Tom has started an program called The Wealth Builders Club. This is a very practical strategy to help you build your wealth through additional revenue streams rather than investing. It makes a lot of sense.

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According to Bix Weir we’re coming down to crunch time. The end is nigh and the Too Big To Fails will be failing right and left. Bix believes you need to divorce yourself from it as soon as possible or suffer the consequences. There’s no alternative because the United States owes too much money to ever dream of paying it back. Things will never be the same and the normal that exists today will soon be a thing of the past. While you might not have to become a farmer or hunter-gatherer, the way you obtain your food, as well as pay for it, is going to be completely different. So get ready, it’s coming soon.

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Jason Hartman, a Financial Survival Network sponsor, joined us again for another discussion about real estate investing and whether it’s as good as gold or better. Jason sees many aspects of real estate that are superior to gold. The ability to leverage and compound profits at the rate of inflation or better is a major positive in Jason’s book. Also, Jason sees that real estate investing is a time proven way of building wealth in America. He’s not encouraging you to sell your gold, but to simply diversify your holdings. The future is uncertain and no one is sure how things are going to work out. Be prepared.

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Andrew Horowitz of the TheDisciplinedInvestor.com caught up with me today. We talked about the precious metals slam down, Apple Computer, the real inflation rate and the real economy. I emphatically made the point that precious metals is the ultimate insurance policy against reckless politicians and infinite money printing. While the government is painting rosy economic numbers, food-stamp use is burgeoning and the long term unemployment rate is increasing. So don’t be fooled by the propaganda.

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Plain and simple, no! Mike Gearhardt has lost all hope of the government getting its act together. Individuals have cut their spending and implemented budget discipline, while the government has made no such efforts. The United States needs to totally revamp the way it does business and redefine the role of government and the benefits that it can provide. Can the public be educated to understand the severity of the situation and the necessity to change? So far the answer has been no and our politicians have helped perpetrate these lies. The solution is for the people to hold their politicians accountable and force them to act.

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Today we spoke to Dr. Rosalene Glickman. The Fortune list of the 100 best places to work has just been released. Google again is number 1. While some may believe that these companies are overly generous and paternalistic, the results of these companies speak for themselves. Bringing out the best in their employees is part of their mission statement. When employees are happy and fulfilled they produce their best. While there are many theories about why companies succeed and fail, the reality is that the companies that motivate their employees and work as team, produce their best results.

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John Rubino says that if you haven’t taken financial responsibility yet, you better do it soon! Even though gold and silver were thoroughly slammed down, buying of the physical products has reached record rates. Normally when there’s a panic investors seeks to dump their investment on the market and take their losses. Not so this time and one has to wonder why. Look for the committment of traders (COT) to tell the story on Friday.

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Diana Zoppa is back, and there’s a physical precious metals buying frenzy taking place. Certain products such as 90 percent junk silver are in tight supply. And it is a great time to buy especially if you’ve been waiting 12 years for a major pullback. As Diana reiterated, precious metals are insurance on your money. And you’ve never needed that insruance policy more than now. We also discussed the Liberty MasterMind Symposium and the right way to have a garage sale, get lots of your neighbors to join in. Most importantly we discussed avoiding Political Correctness and why it’s so important to speak your mind.

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